I hope that you have had a great half term week. For those of you that have had some time off, I pray that you have had a great week with friends and family.

​As you know, we have been invited to plant a church in Newcastle in 2019. Ellie and I will be leaving York in late 2018 / early 2019 to lead this project and we are so excited about it! Newcastle is such a great city and we are looking forward to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with many people there.

The church we are starting is going to be the 'Resource Church' for the Diocese of Newcastle and is going to set out to revitalise church life in the city of Newcastle and be a resource for mission and growth across the whole diocese.

Since we last shared about this on a Sunday I can update you on a couple of things and ask for you to pray about them too. We have been looking for an appropriate building to plant into. While there have been a number of ideas, the current lead proposal is that we plant into All Saints Church, right in the heart of Newcastle on the Quayside. It is one of the most iconic buildings in the city. All Saints was built by the Church of England in 1786 but has been closed since the 1950's as a church and since the 60's has been owned by Newcastle City Council. It is a huge church building and is in a fantastic location, but it does need a lot of work doing to it as it has been closed for so long.

We currently have a bid in with the Church Commissioners to help fund the work needed to get this Resource Church going. We will hear back from them at the end of June. Please pray for this bid and for the Church Commissioners as they look at it.

Ellie and I will be starting work full time in Newcastle in January and the church will launch and open in September 2019 - we really appreciate your prayers for us too! A number of people from The Belfrey family are thinking about moving to Newcastle with us sometime in 2019 to be a part of this exciting church plant as we look to build a church from scratch, share the love of Jesus and plant other churches. If you would like to know any more about how you might get involved, please get in touch with me - I would love to hear from you!

God has exciting plans for Newcastle and he also has other exciting plans for us beyond York. James and Tash have started their work abroad, we are sending Rosie Brabbs to Eastfield in Scarborough, our partnership in Kitgum (Uganda) through Tearfund is beginning to take shape and all our current mission partners continue to do an amazing job sharing the truth and love of Jesus.

God also has exciting plans for us in York over the coming years as we continue to be a family that looks to 'Serve God's Transformation of the North'. Interviews are taking place for our next Associate Minister on Monday 18th June, please pray for that process and for all involved.

This Sunday, Matthew is going to be speaking to us as we start a new sermon series looking at the church in Antioch and communion is at 6pm. I look forward to seeing you in church on Sunday we we worship God together as family. Thank you so much for being family with us.